The common tube-building polychaete Lanice conchilega is known as a habitat structuring species and widespread in intertidal and subtidal regions down to 1900 m water depth. By effecting hydrodynamics, increasing the habitat stability, and oxygen supply, L. conchilega accomplishes to change a formerly uniform environment into a heterogeneous habitat (Van Hoey et al., 2008). Nevertheless, L. conchilega abundance is affected by physical factors like sedimentology, flow regime, as well as the

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... ability of food (Willems et al., 2008). This study focuses on the physical factor sediment composition. Hence, sand was collected in L. conchilega forming zones, examined in the laboratory with sieves of different mesh sizes for analysis of the grain size distribution in relation to L. conchilega abundance. Moreover, the depth of the oxidation layer in the respective sediment and duration of water submergence were determined. Here, we report a significant correlation between the abundance of tubes of L. conchilega and the relative quantity of rough sediment. Furthermore, we found that the number of tubes of L. conchilega is negatively correlated to the thickness of the oxidation layer.